Bohol Island suffered tremendous damage from the Magnitude 6.9 earthquake in 2013, which was followed by the Super Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda). I visited Tungod, a barangay (village) part of the Inabanga town, which was one of the greatest hit regions in Bohol. The disaster in 2013 left the entire village without running water supply since then. More than 90% of the men in the village are fishermen and most people are living near poverty levels. However, the people were extremely friendly with wide smiles and welcomed me with warm open arms.

Thanks to my friend who knows the village chief, I had the luxury of staying at the chief’s house, which had no running water supply too, so I bathed by scooping water from a huge tank. The chief and her family members helped me a great deal by translating my survey into the local Visayan language, and helped me gather the villagers for the survey. I depended entirely on the villager’s niece to interpret for me during the research at first, but on the second day, I made friends with a few villagers who spoke decent English and went around to talk to the villagers by myself.

What surprised me the most was that many of the children spoke Japanese!! This village has been welcoming interns from Japan to help with the development of the village for some years now. And that was where the children picked up random Japanese phrases. When they knew I was a Singaporean from Japan, they started spouting random Japanese phrases. Whenever a motorbike was approaching, the children would shout together “abunai abunai abunai!” meaning “be careful/ dangerous!” in Japanese.

昨日はマニラに来て友達と贅沢な海鮮料理を堪能した！今日はマニラ市内を観光し、明日東京に戻ります！

After the memorable stay at Tungod, I came to Manila yesterday and had one of the best seafood meals I’d ever have! I’d be touring around Manila today before returning to Tokyo tomorrow.